Posted
by
timothy
on Wednesday May 19, 2010 @02:12PM
from the ayn-rand-would-approve dept.

coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission today got a judge to effectively kill off the Internet service provider 3FN, which the agency said specialized in spam, porn, botnets, phishing, and all manner of malicious web content. The ISP's computer servers and other assets have been seized and will be sold by a court and the operation has been ordered give back $1.08 million to the FTC."

Child porn will generally get you in trouble in just about every western jurisdiction. This is not news. This was not just a singular administrative action born in the middle of the night. This started over a year ago and was the culmination of a legal proceeding where they apparently proved that this entity was actively recruiting nefarious clients to host child porn and other illegal activities.

This one smacks more of sensationalist summary writing than of government censorship or unconstitutional takings.

As someone who works for a government agency and, in fact, calculates those kinds of fines, I can probably answer that for you. Regulated entities have to agree to abide by certain rules with the agency that regulates them. Breaking these rules does not rise to the level, generally, of criminal acts so that kind of punishment is out. Besides, how do you throw a corporation in jail. The punishment for breaking these rules is usually a fine, which can be challenged before a judge (usually an administrative law judge). Also, part of that fine will be to recoup the costs of the investigation.

I was watching a German TV show the other day, when suddenly a young woman came strolling across the screen topless. Oooops. That's not allowed on U.S. broadcast television (although I wish it was). I'd say we're prudish, or at least the FCC is.

It is a slight misquote of an example used by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr in the majority decision in Schenck vs the United States. The proper quote is falsely yelling "fire" in a theater.

...the original complaint lists "pornography featuring children, violence, bestiality, and incest" in one section, and every other mention of "pornography" is listed as "child pornography".

Even excluding the child pornography, reading the complaint, the pornography aspects of his business are not legitimate porn sites. He runs porn sites whose primary purpose is to catch search engine hits and direct them to sites containing malware, viruses, and fake anti-virus products (ransom anti-virus software, effectively). This is not a guy who runs a few woefully unethical businesses and then runs a legitimate pornography business on the side. Please don't confuse this for the shutdown of a pornography website, even the porn sites are just tools to infect unsuspecting visitors with hostile software.

Pretending this particular case is the law coming in and preventing you from looking at pornography is roughly akin to suggesting that Adolf Hitler was considered an enemy of the Allied powers because they didn't like his painting.

It's a *GREAT* example...actually yelling fire in a crowded theatre is certainly indisputably sociopathic. But the court case was about anything but that issue.

The *ACTUAL* ruling came in 1919, in Schenk v US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater [wikipedia.org] -- in which the supreme court in their massively screwed up logic ruled that it was illegal to distribute leaflets opposing the draft--comparing it as a seditious act of comparable danger to yelling fire in a theatre in which they said "free speech is not absolute"

Not only was free speech not absolute (that part should be obvious)--because you can't yell fire in a theatre, you also can't distribute leaflets opposing government policy. Because those two are clearly of comparable significance and burden on free expression.

Please don't use the fire example--the case deserves public scrutiny until overturned.

Just because free speech isn't absolute doesn't give you the right to repress it when you find it convenient.